


I've Been Having Dreams

by Mx_Nearly



Series: Worldstate: Second Chances [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Epistolary, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Not Beta Read, Platonic Relationships, The Calling (Dragon Age), Tranquil Mages, angsty but not without hope, r/dragonage prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 10:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20619224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mx_Nearly/pseuds/Mx_Nearly
Summary: Four unsent letters found in the desk of Warden-Commander Neria Surana, all written in the years leading up to her quest to cure the Calling.





	I've Been Having Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> So I stumbled across r/dragonage, and it turns out that they have weekly fic prompts. I was intrigued by this one in particular: _Tell a story through exchanged letters. Difficulty Bonus You only have four exchanged letters to tell the story. Extra Difficulty Bonus 4 Exchanged Letters and 800 Words._
> 
> Title from the ubiquitous song "Trampoline" by Shaed because 1) it's a great song and 2) I've had it stuck in my head all day.
> 
> Anyway, this is unbetaed, but please do enjoy my first foray into writing fanfic in a year or two. This is a separate worldstate from my "Oil and Canvas" fic, despite sharing a heroine.

_I._

Friend,

Last night I dreamed we were children again. Whispering over stacks of homework and shrieking with laughter through those winding hallways. It was a pleasant change of pace from most of my dreams.

I recruited Lily. I don’t know if I did her a kindness, but having a purpose had to have been better than being left to rot in Aeonar.

She passed to the Maker’s side last night despite my best efforts. Not because of the Taint. Plague had visited a village we passed through, and she insisted on stopping to help the sick. I think she would have survived the Joining, even weak as her long imprisonment made her. Dear friend, if things had gone differently, you would have made each other happy.

With love and regrets,

N.S.

_II._

Dear friend,

The dreams are worse. Maybe it’s simply that I’m sleeping more these days. I have no fear of possession. Demons can offer me nothing that I want—nothing real, anyway, and I have encountered things leagues worse than abominations. Sometimes, alone at night while Zevran is away chasing Crows, I think I feel the tentacles of the first broodmother I encountered squeezing the life from my chest. Worse still are the memories of the Mother’s gaping maw, spitting poison at me.

My other worries fade with each passing year. The repairs on the Keep finished this past month, and the ranks of both my soldiers and my Wardens swell. Many youth who were children during the Blight and the Siege of Amaranthine have come of age this past year. Mara Amell (do you remember how madly I adored her as a child?) has joined our healers, and we are healthier for it. And despite everything, I trust Morrigan and her promises. 

All that is left is the Calling, and the ally who works in the Deep Roads to undo it. If he finds a cure, then even the dreams can fade away.

With love and cautious hope,

N.S.

_III._

My dear friend,

Alistair wrote to me some time ago to tell me that the dreams have returned to him as well. He and Anora have no heir, and Ferelden will face another succession crisis if no solution is found before he departs for the Deep Roads. My ally told me that the old library might hold tomes that could save him years of research and experimentation, so I returned home.

Jowan, I saw you.

You were older than when we last met, and that Maker-blighted brand loomed large on your brow, but you recognized me.

Blight take me, I wanted to keep walking. I didn’t want to acknowledge what I was responsible for. Sashes, Jowan I know I didn’t wield the brand, but I could have fought them harder. I could have told you to run away that day in Redcliffe’s dungeons. Or if I hadn’t trusted Irving in the first place--- [the ink here is blotted, and the paper is water-stained]

We talked, and you seemed content. I didn’t burn the library to cinders around me. I suppose that has to be enough.

I have a delivery to make.

With a guilty heart,

N.S.

_IV._

Oldest friend,

The dreams begin to bleed into my waking hours, but my ally soothes them with his own song. I cannot be far from his side, or they fast begin to plague me again. He tells me he knows where to find the last few pieces to the cure, and he and I will depart soon with his friend to find them. I’ve promoted Nathaniel in my stead (a fitting Arl of Amaranthine), and I’ve taken my farewells.

Zev has offered to undergo the Joining so he can accompany me, but I can’t let him make that sacrifice. I leave with so many regrets, Jowan, but his love is not among them. In quiet moments, I like to imagine that you and I and our loves could have lived a quiet life together. You were my brother, Jowan, and you deserved more of a chance than I or anyone else offered you.

In these, my last days of lucidity, I’ve tried to reflect on my life.

The choices I made during the Blight, I justified to myself as being born of desperation. We Wardens were so few in number, I said, so beaten down, that we couldn’t be certain that any of us would survive to the final blow. I recognize now that I was simply afraid. 

I wasn’t ready to die then, and I’m not ready now either. I’m going to save myself again, or I will die fighting for it.

With love and desperate hope,

N.S.

**Unsent letters found in the desk of Warden-Commander Neria Surana after her mysterious departure from Vigil’s Keep, 9:40 Dragon.**

**Author's Note:**

> re: 'Sashes. Look. If the early moderns had 'Zwounds (from "God's wounds") there is absolutely no reason I can't imagine analogous oaths based on the way Andraste died, right?
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments always, always appreciated but never demanded.


End file.
